


Living The Dream

by wintergrey



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Cookies, Cute Kids, Domestic Fluff, Family, Kissing, M/M, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-20
Updated: 2015-05-20
Packaged: 2018-03-31 09:17:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3972478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergrey/pseuds/wintergrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clint and Laura leave Steve and Thor to babysit while they get away to the city for a night. </p><p><a href="http://wintergrey.tumblr.com/post/119392471316/ridiculous-sentence-prompts">Ridiculous Prompts</a>: “I’m sorry that I got way too into playing house and accidentally kissed you passionately.” Thor and Steve seemed the likely victims of such a circumstance. Golden retrievers, both of them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living The Dream

"I feel it necessary to apologize." Thor stood in the middle of the kitchen, hands knotted together in front of him, barely able to look Steve in the eye.

"It was nothing. We were playing around." Steve didn't want to make a big deal of it because it was obviously making Thor incredibly uncomfortable.

"Are the children asleep?" Thor glanced past Steve, into the darkened house beyond.

"Nate and Cooper are sacked out. Lila's pretending to be asleep but she's reading under the covers with a flashlight." Steve skirted Thor--there was hardly room for them both in the kitchen--and took the coffee pot to fill it with water. "I'll go up in a few to check on her."

"Did they say anything about..." Thor turned in place, tracking Steve as he moved around the kitchen.

"You planting one on me when we were playing happy family?" Steve would have laughed except that Thor still looked distressed. "Thor, it's nothing."

They'd been playing house--Lila and Cooper decided they should, since Clint and Laura were off in NYC on an actual overnight date. The kids had assigned Steve to be Mom and Thor to be Dad for the day. They'd been happy to play along, down to Steve wearing a frilly apron that he was sure Laura had received as a gift because it wasn't really her style. He was confident he could pull it off.

All in all, it was kind of sweet. This was the sort of thing Steve could get used to, supervising colouring while Thor engaged Nate in a serious babytalk conversation after a post-nap diaper change. The day was balmy and golden, the air smelled of things blooming and growing. A pollen-laden bee bumbled into the house at one point, much to Cooper's concern. Thor caught the bee in one hand, ever so carefully, and Cooper supervised its return to the wild after a stern lecture to it on why coming in the house was a bad idea. That was as exciting as things got, and it was bliss.

Later, Steve had stayed behind to watch Nate and make dinner while Thor and the kids went out to slay weed demons in the garden. A mighty battle indeed. He grated cheese and prepared pasta and chopped veggies to the music of the children shouting outside and Nate burbling pleasantly in his swing.

When the Barton Army had returned victorious, Steve had greeted them at the door with Nate on his hip. The kids were talking over each other, spilling wild tales of their struggle against the devilish weed invaders. Steve brought what came next on himself when he turned to Thor to tease, "What, I don't get a kiss from the conquering hero? I've been waiting a whole war here."

Well, he got that and then some, Thor's massive arm around his waist nearly taking him off his feet and then a kiss that made him grateful something was holding him up. It was so unexpected, both the kiss and his reaction to it, that Steve had his free arm around Thor's neck and was kissing him back before he knew what was going on.

It was a graceless kiss, to be honest, knocked teeth and bitten lips, Steve twisted awkwardly to keep the baby from being caught between them. Thor tasted like warm sun and the sweat of hard work, his hair was silky when it fell across Steve's cheek. Then the stove timer went off and the world came crashing back in, chattering kids leaving dirt smears on the fridge as they pulled it open to ruin their dinners and a pot lid rattling a counterpoint to the incessant beeping of the timer.

There hadn't even been time to apologize to each other. Life swept on and the moment was past. Now, Steve was putting on a pot of coffee and Thor was looking like he'd rather be anywhere else now that it was just the two of them. It was dark out, the dense black of a country night, peepers sang in the undergrowth and night birds called to one another.

"If you say so." Thor looked even more uncomfortable now. "As you like."

Well, it had been a hell of a kiss. Steve hadn't felt something like that in years, the kind of kiss that made the world stop. Thinking back on it brought a little shiver and then a rush of heat below his belt buckle that suggested maybe it wasn't nothing.

"Unless you don't want it to be nothing." Steve flipped the coffee maker on. Now he was the one who could hardly look at Thor. "I don't know how things are in Asgard," he said, forcing himself to handle this with something like dignity. "Hell, I don't know how things are on Earth right now, I can barely keep up from day to day. Not that any of that should--"

Thor kissed him again, huge, rough hands on his face this time. A tender kiss but not chaste, hot and searching. Not that any of that should stop us. Steve grabbed the front of Thor's flannel shirt to keep himself steady and kissed him back hungrily. Hearing Thor's breath catch brought Steve a little surge of victory.

"I think to deny what is true in favour of what is comfortable is beneath us," Thor said softly. He let his forehead rest against Steve's for a moment, his eyes closed. An almost tangible aura of calm radiated from him and Steve was caught in it with him, held in a sphere of serenity. The peace it brought was so unexpected and so overwhelming that Steve's eyes stung with unshed tears.

"It's not nothing." Steve exhaled slowly, let Thor pull him into a warm embrace that flooded him with strength even as he relaxed. "Sorry."

"I suspected it was not." Thor pressed a kiss to his hair. "But I have been mistaken before, thus the apology."

"What now?" Steve could have stayed there forever but the lights on the baby monitor were bouncing, suggesting that Nate's ability to interrupt any romantic overtures extended to more than just his parents.

"What now?" Thor pulled back enough to look at him, grinning. "I think you go tend the smallest of our charges while I discover where Laura hid the cookies. She promised cookies."

"Meet you on the porch swing?" Steve stepped away reluctantly, urged on by Nate's gurgles of disapproval.

"Indeed. I must get one of those for my rooms in Asgard," Thor said briskly. "Especially if you enjoy them."

"Subtle," Steve said, laughing. He took the stairs two at a time to check on the kids.

Cooper was half out of bed, so Steve shuffled him back in and brushed his sweaty hair from his forehead before giving him a kiss there. Lila was asleep, comic on the floor, flashlight glowing under the covers. Steve set both on her bedside table and straightened her covers. She mumbled a complaint about not being tired, then rolled over and fell back asleep. Not tired at all.

Nate was wide awake in his crib, kicking at his blanket as he talked to himself. Now Steve understood why Clint wanted a night alone in the city with Laura. Nate's bright eyes suggested he had no intention of sleeping.

"Okay." Steve shook out the blanket, then tucked him back in. A hand on his tummy settled him down until he was willing to take his pacifier instead of holding forth on whatever baby things he was thinking. "Can I make you a deal?"

Nate stared up at him and made solemn nuk noises with the pacifier. Good as a yes.

"I'd like a chance to go back downstairs and kiss that guy with the hammer," Steve said seriously. "Because I haven't kissed anyone like that in about seventy years. I don't want to blow this. You let me do that and when you're bigger, I promise to let you play with the shield."

Nate bubbled sleepily around the pacifier. That seemed like an agreement of sorts.

"We good?" Steve smoothed Nate's wispy hair back, then patted his tummy until his eyes closed at last. "Good," Steve whispered.

The kitchen smelled of coffee and pure country night air, something Steve hadn't smelled since...since the war, really. Nights under the stars, in farmers' fields lying unploughed because there was no one left to farm, coffee they couldn't do without if only because it tasted of normalcy and home.

Steve picked up the baby monitor to take it out with him. "Did you find the cookies?"

"I was victorious yet again." Thor held up the tin. "Come reward me."

A cup of coffee waited on the porch rail. Steve traded the baby monitor for it before he sat down with Thor. The swing complained a little under their weight but he'd seen Clint and the kids monkeying around on it so it'd hold.

"How should I do that?" Steve took a cookie--chocolate with even more chocolate in it--and waited for an answer.

Thor set the tin down in his lap and slid his arm around Steve instead. Unexpected, again, and good. Steve put his head on Thor's shoulder to see how it felt. True, like Thor had said.

"I would fight through Jotunheim and back for this moment," Thor said easily, but there was a weight behind his words that Steve couldn't miss. "You could also kiss me again. We can only hope young Nathaniel holds up his end of your bargain."

"Heard that, did you?" Steve's cheeks were hot but he tipped his head back to offer a kiss anyway.

"Indeed." Thor kissed him once, lightly, laughing. "That you would negotiate with such a formidable foe for a chance to enjoy my attentions is flattering."

"I'd take on worse." Steve kissed him without any reservations, to feel what it was like, and it was a better rush than coffee or chocolate or jumping out of an airplane. "I'd take on worse and his big brother." That got him more laughter until he shoved half a cookie in Thor's mouth.

"This is a good life," Thor said around the cookie. He gestured vaguely with his coffee cup. "The work, the earth, the full table, the children. I am glad to have experienced it. I confess I did not think I would find myself envious."

"I knew I would." Steve let his head rest on Thor's shoulder again. "This is pretty much the dream my father would have dreamed. Land to sustain you, family to remember you."

"And still you came, to taste a thing you know you may never have?" Thor rubbed his cheek against Steve's hair.

"A taste is better than nothing." Steve took another cookie. "Besides, it makes me happy to know someone's living this life. It's how it should be, even if it's not that way for me. Reminds me what I'm fighting for."

"You are the best man I know," Thor said simply. "I would be proud to be your companion--whatever you would call such a thing here. I confess I have not paid it much mind, not thinking it was a thing that might happen until it did."

"Are you asking me out?" Steve looked up so he could try to read Thor's expression. Serious and thoughtful, then Thor nodded.

"I believe so, yes." A frown gathered between Thor's brows. "Though I am not entirely certain how 'out' reconciles with sharing your bed?"

"Don't worry, it does. It's just a figure of speech." Somehow Steve got the words out in spite of the way his heart skipped a beat. The thought of Thor naked in his bed was nothing short of stunning.

"I believe your contract with Nathaniel only covered kissing," Thor mused. "When we return to the city, perhaps we should arrange for a few days to ourselves. I'm certain we would both benefit from finding new things to dream of and to fight for, together."

 


End file.
